Her sympathy takes its most common form, the head tilt. “Listen, Trick was just trying to watch out for you.”
“Well, that would be a first.”
Isabel hesitates, then digs through her bag. She pushes a polished, red-orange stone across the table to me. “Here.”
I pick it up, its smooth red surface streaked with pale orange and almost translucent, like glass. “What’s this?”
“It’s a carnelian stone.” At my puzzled expression, she explains further. When she was in eighth grade, she went on a trip to Carnelian Bay on Lake Tahoe, which was named for all these red-orange stones on the shore. That day, the guide told them how these stones held protective and healing properties, how they were used to ward off difficulty or evil. “I know it sounds a bit lame and hippie-ish, but I give them to all my friends — Logan, Bodie, Joy, Amanda — a bunch of people. Only I think Bodie lost his. Because he’s an idiot. Anyway, they’re to protect you from other people, mostly from how selfish and jealous people can be and how that can spill over onto us all the time if we’re not careful. Believe me, I know. So I keep my carnelian with me like an amulet.” She pulls a small stone from the pocket of her jacket and holds it up. “I don’t race without it.” I must look unsure, because she shrugs. “I know, I know, it’s superstitious and weird but it works. Anyway, I got you one. For you to keep with you because, you know, it seems like you might need it.”
I turn the glossy stone over in my hands, my eyes welling. “Thanks, Isabel.” Tucking it safely in my pocket, I blink quickly. “What are you up to this week? Want to try to ski a little on Friday or something? I mean, I know I’m terrible, but Oli says I’m getting a lot better.”
Her face falls. “I can’t — we’re leaving Thursday for Mammoth. We have a race there this weekend.”
“Oh, right — okay.” I try not to look disappointed. “Well, have fun!”
There’s that word again.
Wednesday morning, I stare into a latte at Elevation and think about having fun. What do I do for fun? I guess I’d always thought tennis was fun, only the last year or so, it has kind of felt like one of my jobs. School used to be fun. I was that kid in elementary school who earned all her monthly STAR STUDENT! buttons (which I still have in a shoe box under my bed). And sometimes learning is still fun; it’s just that there’s too much of it. Too many essays and tests and SAT words and reading and studying and starting all over again each week. At what point do we reach a saturation point and there’s no room left?
Not that Ranfield’s not fun. We have a hyperactive student government who are always creating dances, activities, charity drives, festivals. But I don’t go to many of those because I’m busy trying to keep afloat in the school part. And also because most of their events feel stressful and competitive. How many cans of food can you bring for the needy? How many laps can you do to raise money for the homeless shelter? How many pages can you read to earn books for the library downtown? Everyone’s always trying to win at everything all the time. Even when it’s for a good cause. It’s exhausting and really doesn’t feel that fun at all.
Or maybe I just don’t know how to have fun.
Could I be having fun right now? I look around the café. It’s sort of fun to study here by the crackling fire, with a steaming latte, listening to that new indie band Natalie has playing low on the speakers. Maybe I should buy a chocolate chip cookie? Cookies are fun. I stare at my AP history textbook. Fun’s not so easy when I’m supposed to be reading a section called “America Chooses Imperialism.” Maybe it would be fun if it were American Imperialism: The Musical, featuring the songs “Three Cheers for Oppression!” and “Just Give Me That!” Actually, that gives me a good idea for the next project.
I’m scribbling notes when I feel someone standing over me. “Hey, San Diego.” Beck slides into the seat across from me. “Still avoiding me?”
“Obviously not very well.” I give him a quick smile but make a show of flipping a few pages of my history textbook.
He pouts. “You didn’t even say hi at the party the other night.”
“You had something attached to your face.” I pretend to think about it. “I think her name starts with an M. Madison, maybe? I don’t know. Do you even keep track?”
He laughs in that charcoaly way of his that I’m sure he practices in front of a mirror. “Wow, jealous. A nice color on you.”
“Not jealous. Concerned. I know how you don’t like to work too hard. And keeping track of all of your girlfriends seems like a time management issue for you.”
“Not really.” He stands up, waving to someone outside. Not a girl, for the record. “And I always know where to find the ones I like best.” He gives my shoulders a little squeeze and saunters out.
Can it count as fun to love-hate someone? I open my Now List II where I’d carefully written HAVE MORE FUN in all caps as #7. (I’d also added “Be more spontaneous!” as #8 for good measure. And “No boys!” for #9.)
I’m totally crossing off #7.
A few hours later, I’m almost done with my AP history notes when suddenly someone is hiding under my table. “Um, hello?” I peer beneath it.
Logan crouches there, a finger to his lips. “Shhhh. Look like you’re studying.”
“I am studying.”
“Shhhh.”
Someone’s feeling better. I return to my notes. Minutes later, Bodie flashes by outside the window at a run, looping back when he sees me. Jogging in place, he mouths, “Logan?” I shake my head, shrugging a haven’t seen him, and he takes off at a run again around the corner of the store.
“He’s gone,” I say in an overexaggerated whisper.
“Give it a minute.” Logan’s voice floats out from his hiding spot.
He’s right. Bodie flashes by the window one more time, going in the opposite direction. I dutifully study my notes, but who am I kidding? No way am I absorbing any relevant information about the Progressive Reforms of Theodore Roosevelt when Logan Never has wedged himself beneath my table, his back pressed into my shins.
Logan pokes his head above the table. “Okay, that’s plenty of time.”
I smile at his hair, messed up from the table. “What was that about? You’re lucky you don’t have gum in your hair.”
He checks for it anyway. “Snow tag.” He slips into the chair next to me. “What are you up to?”
“Nothing as fun as snow tag.” I close the book. “Which is what, by the way?”
His eyes slipping to the window again, just in case he needs to duck at any moment, he explains that he and some of the other Frost Boys created this elaborate game of snow tag years ago and it kept evolving into an ongoing thing they play. They hound one another all over the mountain, following clues from people they know who are willing to rat someone out, until they tag someone who needs tagging.
“But that could take days.”
“Sometimes,” he agrees. “But mostly not.” He looks at my closed book. “Want to come?”
Have more fun. “Do I need to be in my ski stuff?”
“It helps.”
“I don’t think I like this game,” I say, peering over the edge of the chairlift into a wide canyon. Logan talked me into taking the Red Dog chair over to the Squaw Creek resort, and it feels way sketchier than the other ones we’ve been on as it shivers and creaks over a deep ravine. “Yeah, I don’t like this lift at all.”
Logan kicks back in the chair. “It’s fine.”
“That doesn’t look fine,” I say, pointing down. “That is what death looks like.”
Chuckling, he slings an arm across the back of the lift, his glove just brushing my shoulder. “You worry a lot.”
“Wow, Logan Never with the insightful observations.” My nerves don’t let the tease come out lightly and instead I sound defensive.
He notices and lets his gloved hand fall to my shoulder, giving it a reassuring squeeze. “I won’t let you die on Red Dog.”
Not convinced, I study a ski patroller
who glides by beneath us in his red jacket, wondering how many people he’s had to pull down the mountain today in one of those little sleds I’ve seen zipping by. “Is it much longer?” I try to look ahead to see the end of the lift, but suddenly, the whole chair shudders. Then stops. I seize the bar in fear. “What’s happening? Why are we stopping?”
Logan looks behind him. “Don’t know. Sometimes they have to stop the lift because someone falls off.”
One hand on the front bar, I clamp my other hand on the side rail for support. “What do you mean, someone falls off?”
“Not from up here. Usually when they’re trying to get on or off. Or they had a mechanical thing. It happens.” He is way too casual about dangling up here midair.
“How long?”
He shrugs, craning his head to see up ahead, where the lift in front of us sways, the two guys on snowboards jostling each other. To distract myself, I take off my gloves, pull out my binder from my backpack, and flip it open to the Now List II. I scribble a huge star by Will’s Be brave. Then I add another star next to it. I’ve earned at least two sitting up here. I also cross off Be more spontaneous! because this totally counts.
“What’s that?” Logan motions at the binder.
“Nothing.” I try to jam it back into my backpack, but Logan’s too quick and he grabs it. He has the whole not-scared-to-be-suspended-above-a-ravine thing going for him, which makes him agile. You’d think he was sitting in a porch swing.
“Please don’t read that,” I say without much heart behind it. Maybe fear makes me docile.
“‘The Now List II,’” he reads. “‘Be more spontaneous!’ Crossed off.” He flips a few pages. Grinning, he looks up. “Wait, you made checklists? For living in the now?”
I tuck my poles farther under my legs. “It helps me.”
“‘Be more spontaneous!’” he reads again. “You know, writing it down is actually the opposite of being spontaneous.”
I take a shaky breath. “Can I have my binder back, please? Ack!” The lift trembles and starts to move forward again.
“See, we’re going again.” He flips through the rest of the binder, the scratched-out former list, the articles and highlights, and all my notes. “This is … well, I’ve never seen anything quite like this before, Mara.” But his voice is affectionate. He closes it and holds it up. “Nice cover. Very now.” A picture of one of the Squaw Valley fire pits.
I try not to laugh. Seeing him there, holding it, it all suddenly seems a little silly. I shrug. “It works for me.”
“To be more spontaneous?”
“Sure.”
Then Logan Never tosses my Now binder off the ski lift.
“WHAT DID YOU JUST DO?!” For a second, as I watch it sail through the air and hit the snow below, where it slides and then comes to a stop, I forget I’m scared and lean heavily forward on the bar, rocking the lift back and forth. I stare at Logan, stunned. “You did not just throw my binder off a ski lift?!”
He feigns a look of surprise. “I was being spontaneous.”
Shaking my head, I sit back, my body flooding with nerves and disbelief. “Like I don’t have a backup copy.”
We spend an hour skiing into the Squaw Creek resort area. Exhausted, I collapse into a wide chair near a large glowing bonfire. A few minutes later, Logan brings me a hot cocoa, setting it on the arm of his side of the chair.
A flash of red catches my eye. I sit up, my cocoa sloshing on my sleeve. “Hey! I think that kid is sledding on my binder!” I point to a group of three kids in ski bibs taking turns sliding down a snow bank. The youngest one, in a white-and-chocolate-brown suit that makes him look like a s’more, clamps his small hands on the edges of the binder as he zips down the bank.
Logan leans in and says in a teasing whisper, “He’s living in the now.”
“Oh, forget it,” I say, leaning back to sip my cocoa and let the bonfire warm my face. “Good for him.”
Without warning, Bodie springs out from behind us. “Tag!” he shouts, grabbing Logan’s shoulders.
“Oh, no! He found you because you were sitting out here with me instead of hiding.” I watch Logan mop hot cocoa off his pants while Bodie does a victory dance that compels the couple next to us to actually get up and leave. Probably because he’s making noises that sound like a sick rooster.
Logan glances up and meets my eyes. “Totally worth it.”
Mom Skypes with me on Thursday night as I’m settling into bed with my laptop, which is weird because she hates to Skype. It doesn’t let her do twelve other things at the same time. “You’re not answering your phone?”
My phone is currently dead at the bottom of my bag. “Hi to you, too.”
“Hi. Why aren’t you answering your phone?” She’s sitting at our kitchen table. I catch a glimpse of the granite island behind her and can hear the low whoosh of the dishwasher.
“It ran out of power. Hold on, I’ll charge it now.” I throw off the covers, dig it out, and plug it into the wall.
When I’m back in front of the screen, she asks, “Did you reschedule with Dr. Elliot?”
My body’s sore from a day of skiing, and with the warm glow of the fire, I could fall asleep in about five seconds. “Not yet.”
“Mara!”
I burrow deeper into my pillow, watching the flames twitch and shift through the glass door of the woodstove. “Dr. Elliot said I should only come in if it felt helpful.”
“How Tahoe of him.” No one does patronizing quite like Mom.
I try to distract her. “How’re the twins? Can I say hi to them?”
“It’s nine. They’re in bed,” she says, as if I’ve asked to fly them to the moon in a helicopter made of cheese.
“Oh, yeah. Bedtime.”
I listen to her report on the twins’ science projects taking up half the kitchen, the difficult case keeping Will up all hours of the night, and the condo she just sold near where we live in North Park to the most annoying hipster couple ever. Finally, she says, “Okay, I won’t bug you anymore about scheduling.”
“Really?” A log shifts in the woodstove, sending the shadows on the ceiling dancing. “No more Google calendar alerts?”
“You’re obviously not using them.” Mom clears her throat, then says, “Actually, I’m mostly calling because I wanted to let you know I’ll be coming up tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” Who needs a Google calendar when you can monitor at close range?
“I’ll be flying into Reno in the late afternoon. I should be there by dinnertime if it doesn’t take a million years to get my rental car. Will you make reservations for dinner?”
“Valentine’s Day’s not until Sunday. We probably won’t need reservations tomorrow.” I hesitate, then bravely add, “What’s this trip about?”
“Maybe I want to see my favorite valentine?”
“Right.” But there has to be more to it than that. I should have just rescheduled the stupid appointment.
“Make reservations for dinner, okay? Somewhere in Truckee; let’s get you out of the valley for a bit. You must be going stir-crazy.”
“Not really.”
Her silence hums with disappointment. “Okay, then — wherever you want to eat. A place with vegetables. I don’t even want to think about what you’re eating while you’re there.”
“I had vegetable soup for dinner.”
She exhales a wind-through-a-shell sigh. “Probably from a can. Listen, I have to go. I have contracts I need to get out to people.” Leaning into the screen so her face seems to swell dramatically, she says, “Mara, when I’m up, we need to talk about how to best reintegrate when you come home.”
Reintegrate. It sounds like something someone dressed in khaki does with a wild animal.
After we hang up, my stomach blooms with nerves, making it almost impossible to concentrate on the imperialism essay I’m finishing. My history teacher had vetoed my American Imperialism: The Musical idea. Apparently, he didn’t think it was very appropriate
to make fun of something like imperialism, and I didn’t have the strength to argue the power of satire with him via my Home Hospital coordinator.
Throwing back the blanket, I wiggle into some jeans and zip a parka over my pajama top. As I slip into my Uggs, I grab a beanie, gloves, and a scarf and walk into the main room. Trick sits on the couch, watching a ski movie. I know enough now to see it’s a Warren Miller film he’s watched a million times. “I’m going for a quick walk.”
“Now?” He sits up a little, scratching his stubbly face. He leaves a little smudge of ash on his cheek, his hands dirty from the fire.
I yank my beanie down over my ears. “Just for, like, ten minutes. To clear my head. I’m having a hard time on this paper I’m writing.”
“Was that your mom?”
“Yeah.” I wind the scarf around my neck. “She’s coming up tomorrow.”
A flash of panic crosses his features. “Tomorrow — why?”
I make a face. “She claims she misses me, but I think she wants to talk me into coming home.” I hold the words out to him almost like a litmus test.
His eyes lock with mine for a moment, but he only says, “Well, take the flashlight. It’s pitch-dark out.”
Outside, the air might actually have teeth. I’m shivering before I even pull my gloves on. I walk down the sanded street, moving as quickly as I can without slipping. Questions pulse through my brain, forming a list of the things I can never quite bring myself to say out loud to Trick:
Do you want me to go home?
Why did you think I couldn’t make friends on my own?
Why haven’t you taken me skiing?
Where have you been all my life?
A flash of anger warms me. Why should I always have to ask the questions? Doesn’t he have anything to ask me? To say to me? Like, for example, Gee, biological daughter, what have you been up to for the last thirteen years?
At the end of our street, I stomp up a sloped hill that leads to a view of Squaw’s famous KT-22. Reaching the crest, I stop, my breath making puffs in the air around me. Clouds obscure the moon, leaving it a glowing smudge against black sky. Up on the mountain, far away, a single groomer moves in lonely sweeps across the slopes, its light cutting a swath across the face of the mountain. I can just make it out, sailing like a ship along the dark mountain, and it’s nice to know I’m not the only one out here tonight. I watch its sluggish light until it starts to snow again and I can barely feel my face before heading back.
The Possibility of Now Page 17